A Shot in the Dark **** (1964, Peter Sellers, Elke Sommer, George Sanders, Herbert Lom, Bert Kwouk, Graham Stark, Tracy Reed, Moira Redmond) – Classic Movie Review 3770

Director Blake Edwards’s tasty 1964 comedy is the welcome first sequel to The Pink Panther (1963), which finds Peter Sellers on even better form as the bizarrely bumbling Inspector Clouseau, who absurdly believes that the housemaid Maria Gambrelli (Elke Sommer) has not shot and killed her partner.

Maybe A Shot in the Dark is not quite as stylish or classy as the original, and perhaps director Blake Edwards tips it too much into slapstick and way over-indulges his star. But Edwards keeps up a relentless farcical pace and much of the movie is hysterically funny. This was the moment where, for better of worse, the series turned from a comedy thriller into an out-and-out farce.

May be it’s broader and less sophisticated, but it’s more popular and funnier. For that reason, George Sanders seems uncomfortable as Benjamin Ballon. He’d have been much more at ease in The Pink Panther.

In the story, such as it is, Inspector Clouseau investigates the murder of Benjamin Ballon’s driver at a country estate.

Invaluable series regulars Herbert Lom as Charles Dreyfus, Bert Kwouk (as the manservant Cato) and Graham Stark as Hercule LaJoy all started in this movie.

Also in the cast are Tracy Reed, Bryan Forbes, André Maranne and Douglas Wilmer.

Next sequel: Inspector Clouseau (1968), with Alan Arkin.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3770

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